Time Between
by abstraction
Summary: A loss, a gain, and the time between the saying. 'There is moment where neither of them say anything at all, and it seems to her that a whole universe could have been born in the space between them, worlds forming and turning.' Post-The Reichenbach Fall.


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Molly tries her best to get the blood out of his coat.

She takes it to the cleaners, eventually, with Sherlock in her flat all the while. When she returns, she hangs the coat on the door and watches his eyes flutter under their lids. He must be dreaming, must be endlessly thinking of whatever he thinks about - a mystery to her, and one she doesn't want to solve, not now. She makes tea and sets out two cups, in hopes that today will be the day that he wakes. She hasn't stopped hoping, but she doesn't feel the overwhelming desire to sob anymore, tears threatening to spill. It's been long enough for that, at least.

Her flat is small, but light fills it, seems to make it bigger. She has books set up in little rows on their shelves, her favorites on the middle shelf, easiest for her to reach them.

Sometimes she reads to him. It's almost like they're having a conversation, except it's one where she doesn't stumble as much; she has the words so clear in front of her that she doesn't find her tongue weighed down by thought or nervousness. She waters the plants hanging from the ceiling and the shadows darken his face as the pot swings slightly, to and fro. She wants to make noise, wants the creak of the plant's pot to swell larger than life, wants her footsteps to echo off the very sky, wants him to hear her, wherever he is, whatever he's thinking. But she stays quiet, tiptoes when in shoes, shuffles in her socks as she wanders from room to room, an easy task when there is so little space.

She used to love the silence, held so much of it in her day, the dead never speaking and her flat always empty, but now the thought of death makes her heart ache, makes her lip tremble just a bit, as she looks after her ward. It is all so strange, and she is trying her best. She wants him to get well, wants him to respond when she asks him things, but doesn't want him to leave, either. She has a feeling she will miss him, more than she does, if even his stoic, silent presence were gone from her room.

She's been sleeping on the sofa.

And one day, a day marked in its absolute mediocrity as no different from the rest, he gasps. She has just gotten off from a late shift and she is setting her bag on the floor and she hears him, and runs. He is struggling to move, to sit up from the bed, and she is by his side.

"Where," he manages to say, but the rest is lost as he sighs, groans. The sheets are tangling in his long limbs and she tries to help him, hands on his arms and trying to hold him in place.

"Sherlock," she says softly, "Sherlock, it's okay, you're okay. You're safe, no need to worry."

He blinks, blinks again, his mouth soft as he tries to form more words. She smoothes the hair from his brow and he looks at her, sees her, sees something else she doesn't quite understand. He moves his mouth, his lips pressing together as he tries, again. He stares at her, concentrating, harder than she has seen, and he opens his mouth, and says, "John?"

"No," she says, sad and happy, but he is already asleep again.

She sighs, wrestles his sheets back in place and tucks him in. Standing over her bed, him in it, she looks at his slumbering form and can feel relief well up in her throat, but also a little sadness.

"Molly," she whispers to him, and leaves the room. She takes off her coat, hangs it on a hook next to his. He will want tea when he wakes again, and she puts the kettle on.

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He's doing better, but he has trouble sometimes. He won't admit it, but she doesn't need him to. He may be the cleverest man she has ever met, the cleverest man in the world, most likely, but she doesn't need to be his equal to see how he stares out the window, hands shaking. His fingers knead the stress ball, long and white in the twilight streaming in. She's made him some toast and smiles, putting a tray next to the bed with a cup of tea.

"Late," he says. It ought to be a question, but it isn't, knows he has seen everything already.

She takes a triangle of toast and crunches into it, feeling the crumbs stick to the corners of her mouth. She chews, swallows. "Yes," she says. "Blunt instrument to the back of the head, six identical notches in the left shoulder blade."

She watches as he thinks, takes another bite from her toast as he looks out the window. She licks her lips. "My shifts are always late anyways," she says conversationally. "No one's polite enough to not die on a nice day like this."

He mumbles something in assent. She sits with him in silence for a moment, her eyes straying from the window to his face, wondering what it is he's searching for. He turns his head, looks into her eyes and she's lost the thought she had.

"The gardener," he says, and turns away from her again.

She wants to laugh, but just nods, the corner of her mouth tilting upwards in a half-smile.

It's the start of something for them to talk about. His motor skills are returning quickly and she has him do simple exercises while she is away. When she returns she will put the kettle on if he hasn't already (he never does) and when she checks on him, he says, "Anything good today?"

"Dead men _normally_ don't tell many tales," she says. "But most aren't stabbed through the face with a spatula."

His eyebrow raises slightly. "Spatula," he repeats quietly. She notices he does this, speaks to himself. She hasn't heard him say John's name again, but sometimes his tone changes, as if his conversation has another participant. She realizes then that perhaps John is always there, just out of sight - on the periphery.

"What else?" he asks, and she tells him. If he is bored by the day's dead, he doesn't say so. She recites the details of each person that comes in to her, and he thinks on them. A habit in the making, a strangely domestic exchange, if morbid. But she doesn't mind.

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He doesn't ask her to bring him papers, but she does. He skims over them, but as the weeks have passed, so have the articles about his suicide. There is never any mention of John. She knows he has been on her computer, checking to see if the blog has been updated. The site count in her browser history makes her surprisingly sad.

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There is a weekend when Sherlock is getting up, stretching his legs carefully, his figure seeming to be an unending line in her slanted view from the kitchen. Her phone sings a small medley, vibrating on the kitchen table. She leans over to look at the screen - and goes still. He notices, of course, because he notices everything, and he straightens his back as she straightens her arm to grab the phone. She presses a button, puts it to her ear and says, "Hello?" softly, nervously, as if she doesn't know who's calling.

She does.

_Hello Molly_, says the voice on the other side, _It's—it's John, John Watson_.

"Oh," she breathes into the phone. She watches Sherlock's face as she says the rest of her sentence: "Hi, John."

His whole body seems to light up, and it's the most alert she has seen him since the fall. His stride is less imposing than it used to be, but he is inches away from her in a second. His finger presses against closed lips. She nods.

"How are you, John? Everything alright?"

_Yeah, it's... no, I mean, I was just calling to—_

There is a long silence. She pulls the phone from her ear to stare at the screen. He's still on the line.

"John?"

_Yes, sorry. Sorry, Molly. Just wanted you to know, the um, the headstone is up. In case— well, in case._

"Oh. Right, yes. Thank you."

Another silence. Sherlock is still so close to her, and she feels small, has always felt small when he towers over her like this. His face is in profile, and she stares at the light that makes a line of white to form the bridge of his nose.

"Is there... is there anything I can do for you, John?"

_Um, no. Thank you, Molly. I've got— I've got to go, I'm on my way to— anyway I was just calling to let you know. About the— you know._

"Okay," she says, but the line is dead.

Sherlock hesitates for a second, then moves away from her, and the absence feels momentous in the space of that small second. He reaches for his coat hanging on the door, and looks back at her. She nods.

He pulls the coat on, and she hands him his scarf.

There is moment where neither of them say anything at all, and it seems to her that a whole universe could have been born in the space between them, worlds forming and turning. And then he hangs the scarf around his neck, pulls it through the loop with practiced ease. "Thank you, Molly Hooper," he says.

And then he is gone.

She has a good idea where.

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End file.
